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National Quality Forum Compendium Compiles National Consensus Standards of Healthcare Quality

Posted on: Monday, 15 May 2006, 09:03 CDT

WASHINGTON, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Consensus standards endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) have become the "gold standard" for measurement of healthcare quality. Now, for the first time, a new NQF publication, "Compendium 2000-2005," presents in one document all NQF-endorsed(TM) consensus standards in an easy-to-use sourcebook, intended to make the array of NQF-endorsed consensus standards more accessible to the public.

In 1998, a Presidential Commission recommended the creation of a national forum in which healthcare's many stakeholders could, together, find ways to improve the quality and safety of American healthcare. This recommendation led to the creation of NQF -- a private, not-for-profit, public benefit corporation established in 1999 to standardize healthcare quality measurement and reporting. Just six years later, NQF has endorsed more than 200 consensus standards.

"NQF-endorsed consensus standards are being widely implemented in a variety of settings, including hospitals, doctor's offices, nursing homes, and home health, among others," said Janet M. Corrigan, PhD, MBA, President and Chief Executive Officer of NQF. "This Compendium presents a single resource for all consensus standards, so that users may find them quickly and easily."

"In this Compendium, we see evidence of NQF's maturation into a respected leader of healthcare quality," said William L. Roper, MD, MPH, Chairman of the NQF Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of the University of North Carolina Health Care System, Chapel Hill, NC. "NQF has become the focal point of this important national movement."

"Having fair, easily understandable measures of healthcare performance is of critical importance to all Americans, especially the nation's seniors," said John C. Rother, JD, Vice Chair of the NQF Board and Director for Legislation and Public Policy for AARP. "This Compendium clearly demonstrates how far the quality movement in general and NQF in particular have come in such a short time."

The Compendium presents consensus standards organized by care setting, measure developer, and chronological order of NQF endorsement. It also presents executive summaries from all NQF reports, including those generated from NQF's work to endorse healthcare quality measurement and reporting frameworks, national priorities for healthcare quality improvement, a patient safety taxonomy, performance measures, serious reportable events, safe practices, and from NQF-convened workshops and summits.

"Having witnessed the inception and growth of NQF, I am proud to see the depth and breadth of its work reflected in one document," said Gail L. Warden, Chairman Emeritus of NQF and President Emeritus for Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI.

"This Compendium should be viewed as the primary reference for national quality performance measures," said Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, founding President and Chief Executive Officer and currently Chief Executive Officer of Medsphere Systems Corporation, Aliso Viejo, CA.

NQF convenes a broad set of healthcare stakeholders including consumers, purchasers, healthcare providers (together with health professionals and health plans), researchers, quality improvement organizations, federal and state government agencies, and accreditors. Because of its diverse stakeholder base and the formal, transparent process by which it standardizes measures, NQF-endorsed products have special legal standing as voluntary consensus standards. NQF has endorsed more than 200 such standards; all are presented in the Compendium.

Praise From Healthcare Stakeholder Leaders

Healthcare leaders from a wide variety of constituencies welcomed publication of the Compendium.

"CMS strongly supports the use of national, consensus-driven quality measures and incorporates them as a key component in its quality initiatives," said Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD. "We will continue to partner with NQF to increase healthcare quality for the American people."

"In its relatively short existence, NQF has proven a credible voice in the performance measurement arena among researchers," said Carolyn Clancy, MD, Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. "This Compendium is a serious publication from a serious organization."

"NQF deserves a great deal of credit for giving consumers a voice at the table in the national quality debate," said Gerald M. Shea, Assistant to the President for Government Affairs at AFL-CIO. "Six years ago, the number of voluntary consensus standards for healthcare quality into which consumers had input was exactly zero. Today, as this Compendium shows, it's more than 200. That's progress."

"NQF has significantly advanced the healthcare quality movement in a way that we are proud to support," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "This Compendium proves that resources devoted to the measurement and public reporting of healthcare quality are resources well directed."

"The nation's Veterans Affairs hospitals have become a model for quality healthcare in part by our measuring and publicly reporting performance information. NQF seeks to bring this model of transparency to the nation at large," said Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, MHSA, Under Secretary for Health at the Veterans Health Administration.

"As healthcare costs continue to rise, employers are constantly looking for ways to control their spending, and a focus on quality is one way they are doing so," said Andrew Webber, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Business Coalition on Health. "NQF has given employers a credible -- and, as this Compendium demonstrates, sizable -- set of tools to use in gauging quality."

"As I peruse this Compendium, I am proud to see the number of cardiac surgery consensus standards, especially those developed by cardiac surgeons themselves," said Fredrick L. Grover, MD, President of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). "Submitting STS measures to NQF's Consensus Development Process was a gratifying experience, and demonstrates that specialty physicians have much to gain from seeking stakeholder endorsement of measures."

Portions of the Compendium and order information are available on the NQF web site, http://www.qualityforum.org/.

NQF's mission is to dramatically improve quality of care. Its portfolio includes the endorsement of performance measurement consensus standards, educational programs for health care leaders on key environmental trends, and award recognition programs. NQF, a non-profit organization (qualityforum.org) with diverse stakeholders across the public and private health sectors, was established in 1999 and is based in Washington, DC.

National Quality Forum

CONTACT: Philip Dunn of National Quality Forum, +1-202-783-0206; orJerry Mullins, +1-202-974-8305, for National Quality Forum

Web site: http://www.qualityforum.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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